El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

El Nino
Monthly plots of ENSO variables for a set of events. Includes many variables and regions with composites and inter-event variance.
New! Historical temperature/precipitation ENSO probabilities are available for countries associated with the FEWS NET program.

Introduction

The connection between Earth’s oceans and atmosphere has a direct impact on the weather and climate conditions we experience. El Niño and La Niña, together called the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), are episodic departures from expected sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. These warmer or cooler than normal ocean temperatures can affect weather patterns around the world by influencing high and low pressure systems, winds, and precipitation. ENSO may bring much needed moisture to a region while causing extremes of too much or too little water in others.

Understanding the processes driving these types of interactions is a key component in improving forecasts and warnings. The NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory studies multiple aspects of ENSO including its precursors, prediction, diversity, and climate and ecosystem impacts. This information can help keep communities safe and guide decisions related to issues such as water management, emergency planning, and ecosystem resilience.

More detailed information about ENSO can be found on the ENSO-101 tab.

Current Conditions El Niño (ONI: 0.05 )
Check out our El Niño Index Dashboard
Animation showing average sea surface temperature anomalies over the past year. Updated weekly. (Larger View)
Drought photo credit: USGS
Flooding photo credit: FEMA
Coral bleaching photo credit: NOAA
ENSO impacts can include hazards to people and property from droughts, heatwaves, and floods. Ecosystems are also at risk, for example corals may become bleached by distress from unusually warm ocean temperatures.

ENSO 101

Some Basics

What are El Niño and La Niña?

El Niño is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures along the the Equatorial Pacific, whereas La Niña is characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures in this region. These variations from "normal" temperatures influence the tropical Pacific ocean—atmosphere system, which in turn impacts weather and climate around the globe. The term El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) basically refers to both the El Niño and La Niña phenomena together. See this page for a more detailed explanation of what happens in the ocean and atmosphere during ENSO.

2016 El Nino (Credit: NOAA/NESDIS)
A very strong El Niño in 2016 – large 'red tongue' in equatorial Pacific. (Credit: NOAA/NESDIS)
A very strong El Niño in 2016 – large 'red tongue' in equatorial Pacific. (Credit: NOAA/NESDIS)
La Nina, Credit: NOAA/NESDIS
A La Niña event – large blue area in equatorial Pacific. (Credit: NOAA/NESDIS)
La Niña event – large blue area in equatorial Pacific. (Credit: NOAA/NESDIS)

How often does ENSO occur?

While their frequency can be quite irregular, El Niño and La Niña events occur on average every 2—7 years. Typically, El Niño occurs more frequently than La Niña.


How long does ENSO last?

El Niño typically lasts 9–12 months, and La Niña typically lasts 1–3 years. Both tend to develop during March–June, reach peak intensity during December–April, and then weaken during May–July. However, prolonged El Niño episodes have lasted 2 years, and even as long as 3-4 years.

How will ENSO impact a particular region?

There has been a lot research investigating the effects of El Niño and La Niña on climate (temperature, rainfall, snowpack, climate extremes, etc.) around the world. However, these impacts can be different from year-to-year due to the varying nature of ENSO, and variations in the atmosphere–ocean system. The images below show typical El Niño and La Niña wintertime patterns for the U.S. Detailed information about worldwide impacts can be found on NOAA's El Niño Theme Page.

Typical wintertime El Niño pattern. (Credit: climate.gov)
Typical wintertime El Niño pattern. (Credit: climate.gov)
Typical wintertime El Niño pattern. (Credit: climate.gov)
Typical wintertime La Niña pattern. (Credit: climate.gov)
Typical wintertime La Niña pattern. (Credit: climate.gov)
Typical wintertime La Niña pattern. (Credit: climate.gov)

What is the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI)?

The cyclic warming and cooling of the eastern and central Pacific can be seen in the sea level pressure in the region. For example, when the pressure measured at Darwin, Australia is compared with that measured at Tahiti, the differences between the two can be used to generate an "index" number. A positive number indicates La Niña, and a negative number indicates El Niño. Historical and recent values can be found at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center .


Learn More

For Students and Teachers

Data In the Classroom (NOAA/NESDIS)
Investigating El Niño Online Activity

El Niño Student Activity (NOAA/OAR)
Student Booklet
Teacher Information on El Niño
Activity Key

Our Research

Selected Topics

  • 2016 El Niño Rapid Response Field Campaign
    An unprecedented field campaign to study El Niño while the event is ongoing.
  • Climate Division Risk Maps
    Does El Niño increase the chances of extreme temperatures or precipitation over the U.S.? PSL researchers have produced risk maps to investigate these questions.
  • MEI V2 ENSO Monitorings
    Current and historic values of the Multivariate ENSO Index developed at PSL.
  • California Drought
    What can drought-stricken California expect from the El Niño winter forecast? PSL researchers contributed to the Drought Task Force report
  • Hydrology in a Warming Climate; Hydrology That Might Have Been
    Ongoing research into the effects of warming on snowpack and streamflow.
  • Wind River/Greater Yellowstone Area and El Niño
    PSL scientists collaborate with the North Central Climate Science Center to address ENSO risks of drought on the Wind River reservation.

Current Conditions

Below is a quick look at what's going on right now. You may also want to check out the Climate.gov ENSO Blog .

See how the current atmosphere/ocean state compares with previous years for a collection of ENSO related indices on the ENSO dashboard.

Sea Surface Temperature (SST)

Today's SSTs

today's SST

Today's SST Anomalies

today's SST anomalies


Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR)

Today's OLR

today's OLR

Today's OLR Anomalies

today's OLR anomalies


Animations

Latest Average Weekly Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies

Latest Average Daily Sea Level Height Anomalies



Marine Heat Waves (PSL's Marine Heatwave Page)

Current Global Marine Heatwaves (detrended)

MHW global

Current US Region Marine Heatwaves (detrended)

MHW US


Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI)

An experimental ENSO monitoring tool showing departures from normal conditions in the tropical Pacific from 1950-present.

current MEI


Forecasts

The ability to forecast El Niño and La Niña events is extremely important as these events tend to be associated with consistent climate variations in the tropics and can even influence the atmosphere around the world. There are two types of forecasts: those obtained from various ocean–atmosphere models and those obtained from statistical models. These models vary in their skill and sometimes can even do better during certain phases of ENSO than others. Forecasters try to take all this in account when making predictions.


PSL Experimental ENSO Forecasts

Linear Inverse Modeling SST/ENSO Forecast

Experimental forecasts (sample images below) of numerous tropical fields, including precipitation, outgoing longwave radiation (OLR), sea surface temperature (SST), and sea surface height (SSH); other variables may become available at a later date.

Sample MA and LIM Nino 34 forecasts

More Information

Past Events

What years are ENSO years?

Because ENSO events differ in their strength, coverage, and seasonality, there isn't unanimous agreement on what constitutes and ENSO event. But, there are broad agreements and you can find some of the lists researchers have used along with how they chose those years. The list in the right column represents ENSO years based on PSL's Extended Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI.ext) and after that, the MEIV2.

You may also be interested in:


Animations of Selected Past Events

1982–1983 El Niño

2010–2011 La Niña

1991–1992 El Niño

1988–1989 La Niña

1997–1998 El Niño

1999–2000 La Niña

Past ENSO Years

El Niño

1897
1900
1903
1906
1915
1919
1926
1931
1941
1942
1958
1966
1973
1978
1980
1983
1987
1988
1992
1995
1998
2003
2007
2010
2016

Neutral

1896
1898-1899
1901-1902
1905
1907-1908
1912-1914
1916
1920-1924
1927-1930
1932-1933
1935-1938
1940
1944-1949
1952-1954
1957
1959-1961
1963-1965
1967-1970
1972
1975
1977
1979
1981-1982
1984-1986
1990-1991
1993-1994
1996-1997
2001-2002
2004-2006
2009
2013-2015
2017-2020

La Niña

1904
1909
1910
1911
1917
1918
1925
1934
1939
1943
1950
1951
1955
1956
1962
1971
1974
1976
1989
1999
2000
2008
2011
2012
2021
2022

Years are determined from Dec-Jan-Feb (DJF) values of the PSL MEI.ext index. ENSO events are most clearly defined in northern winter (DJF), both in terms of impacts and robustness with regard to the ENSO index used. Other seasons have impacts, too, but do not necessarily match the winter seasons.

Comparison of Timeseries of Historic Events

Temporal evolution of El Niño and La Niña events indicated by the MEI.v2. Shown are the top 5 warm and cold non-overlapping events since 1979. Year 0 corresponds to the year of the event in the legends. Click on image to enlarge.

Explore Historic Climate Relationships

El Niño and La Niña can cause the "seasonal climate" – the cumulative effects of the weather over a season – to deviate from normal at many places around the globe. The following PSL pages can be used to analyze what happened during past El Niños and La Niñas and provide a guide to what may happen in the future.

Average ENSO Climate Relationships

A number of ENSO events are averaged together over differeing time periods in order to reduce interannual "noise".

Updated! Global/US Seasonal ENSO Related Variables

This tool allows single or comparison plots of seasonal averaged variables in relation to El Niño and La Niña over the US and the globe.
200mb zonal wind during El Nino

New! FEWS NET: Historic ENSO-Related Climate Impacts

Historical temperature/precipitation ENSO probabilities are available for countries associated with the FEWS NET program.
Western Asian precipitation probability during La Nina

How ENSO Events Differ

Not all El Nino and La Nina events are the same and there are other differences in the base state between events. For example, there is a strong trend in surface air temperature and the number and timing of MJO events can vary.

Updated!Selected Variables by month for El Niño/La Niña including composite mean and inter-event standard deviation with many different types of variables.

Global SLP anomaly map for El Nino

Comparisons of Different El Niño and La Niña Events
Animations, plots, and more: These links give an indication of how similar and how different the atmosphere/ocean can be during events.

sst animation screenshot

Seasonal Extremes

ENSO can have impacts not just on average climate biut also on the extremes of seasonal values.

Effects on Seasonal Climate Extremes of Temperature and Precipitation Over the US
("Risk Plots")

Given an El Niño or La Niña condition, what are the odds of getting a warm versus a cold season? A wet versus a dry season?

Datasets Useful for ENSO Research

Sea Surface Temperature (SST)

Gridded SST datasets are available for monthly means and for daily. Values can be mean or anomalies. Gaps usually exist in SST dataets both in space and time. Different datasets use different models to fill in gaps.

Datasets Areal Coverage Grid Size Time Step Time Coverage Levels
[an error occurred while processing this directive] Global5.0°x5.0° Monthly1850-2013None
ICOADS Global2.0°x2.0°,1.0°x1.0° Monthly1800-presentNone
Kaplan SST Global5.0°x5.0° Monthly1856-presentNone
NCEP GODAS ocean analysis Global.3°x.3° Monthly1980-present 40
NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis Global2.5°x2.5°, T42 Gaussian, T62 spectral 4X Daily, Daily, Monthly1948-present17 pressure levels, 28 spectral
NOAA Extended Reconstructed SST V5 Global1.0°x1.0° Monthly1854-presentNone
NOAA High-resolution Blended Analysis of Daily SST and Ice. Global.25°x.25° Daily1981-present None
NOAA Global Surface Temperature (NOAAGlobalTemp) Global5.0°x5.0° Daily1880-presentNone
NOAA Optimum Interpolation (OI) SST V2 Global1.0°x1.0° Monthly,Weekly1981-presentNone
COBE-SST Global1.0°x1.0° Monthly1891-presentNone
COBE-SST2 Sea Surface Temperature Global1.0°x1.0° Monthly1850-2012None
NODC (Levitus) World Ocean Atlas 1998 Global1.0°x1.0° Monthly,AnnualClimoNone

Outgoing Long Wave Radiation (OLR)

OLR is a measure of tropical convection and has been available via satellite observations since the early 1970's. We make available gridded interpolated values as well as the provided directly from NCEP (which are more recent).

Datasets Areal Coverage Grid Size Time Step Time Coverage Levels
Interpolated OLR Global2.5°x2.5° Daily,Monthly1979-near presentNone
Uninterpolated OLR Global2.5°x2.5° Daily1991-presentNone

Precipitation

For ENSO, precipitation is both associated with changed forcing in the tropics and also is a response to changed flow over the globe.

Datasets Areal Coverage Grid Size Time Step Time Coverage Levels
GPCP V2.3 Precipitation Global2.5°x2.5° Daily,Monthly1979-near presentNone
Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) Global2.5°x2.5° Daily1991-presentNone
NOAA's Precipitation Reconstruction (PREC) Global2.5°x2.5° Monthly1979-presentNone

Climate Indices relating to ENSO

While ENSO is a process that varies both in space and time, it can be convenient to use single time series to represent in monitoring and analysis. Some of these time series are SST averages in a specific region of the tropical Pacific while others use more than 1 variable to attempt to capture more of the dynamical processes that occur in ENSO. Some indices measure the diffrences between events.

Name Region Date Range
Oceanic Niño Index (ONI)SST 5N-5S, 170W-120W1950-present
Niño 1.2 SST 0-10S, 90W-80W1870-present
Niño 3 SST 5N-5S, 150W-90W1870-present
Niño 3.4 SST 5N-5S, 170W-120W1870-present
Niño 4SST 5N-5S, 160E-150W1870-present
Multivariate ENSO index: MEI V2Tropical Pacific1979-present
Extended Multivariate ENSO index: MEI.extTropical Pacific1871-2005
Trans-Niño Index (TNI)Difference Niño 1.2 and Niña 41870-present
Southern Oscillation Index (SOI)Difference of Surface Pressure of Tahiti and Darwin1870-present

Other Datasets

As ENSO impacts weather and climate in general, researchers need to potentially look at all atmospheric and ocean variables. PSL maintains an extensive collection of gridded datasets including our NOAA-CIRES-DOE Twenthieth Century Reanalysis V3. Other dataset can be found from links on PSL's data information webpage. Some other NOAA sites also link to ENSO related datasets: for example, NOAA/CPC has an ENSO data/info list.

Resources and Additional Information


Using Our Products

You are welcome to use PSL-generated plots — from either a pregenerated figure or an interactive program. We request that you please acknowledge PSL as the source. For example: Image provided by the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder Colorado from their website at https://psl.noaa.gov/.